A Very Merry Black Christmas
by maraudersgeek
Summary: Have you ever wondered what the black cousins where like as children? You're about to find out! See what happens when Bellatrix and Sirius get into a fight on Christmas Eve 1966.


She hated them all. She hated Christmas Eve. She hated her parents for leaving her and her sisters at Grimmauld Place with their annoying baby cousins, putting her 'in charge' because she was the 'oldest'. It was stupid. She couldn't care less about them, Sirius with his loud, obnoxious voice, challenging everything and everyone, running around the house like he was on fire, and Regulus, to young and stupid to be interesting and too loyal to his stupid brother to be of any use to her. She sat in the big arm chair in the library, drinking a stolen bottle of wine while she watched her sister Andy playing exploding snap with Sirius and her sister Cissa reading a story book to little Regulus.

"You should not be drinking that, Bellatrix" Cissa cautioned looking over at her, "aunt and uncle will not be happy with you."

Bellatrix scoffed, "I could care less what dear Aunt Walburga and Uncle Orion think" she said, taking another sip out of the bottle.

"Whatcha drinking?", Sirius asked looking over at her and away from his game long enough that his cards exploded on him.

Bellatrix laughed at him and the other girls chuckled, but Regulus ran over to him to make sure he was alright. "Don't do anything to make mom and dad angry", Regulus pleaded softly looking between her and his brother. Regulus gently placed his hand on his brother's shoulder tracing his fingers in a line down Sirius's back. Bellatrix saw Andy and Cissa flinch, but she smirked, knowing that Regulus was tracing scars from Sirius's beatings. He always got beaten more than the rest of them. The girls got hit by their parents on occasion, but nothing like what their uncle Orion put his eldest son through for his argumentative nature and his constant questioning of everything the House of Black stood for.

Sirius, however, leaned his head back and laughed, a loud barking laugh that seemed all too out of place in the proper library so pristinely decorated for the Christmas holidays. "Don't worry Reg, mom and dad won't get angry at you", he said, "but if you're drinking something you're not supposed to cousin Bella," turning his head to look at her, "then I'll tell on you when they get home."

Bellatrix narrowed her eyes, "My name is Bellatrix, you obnoxious little brat, and if you tell on me I'll hex you until I put you in St. Mungos and then you'll be wishing you're father had only beaten you."

Sirius's eyes flashed with fear and anger but before he could speak Cissa cut him off. "Don't be cruel Bellatrix, he's only seven," she scolded.

"I'm eight!" Sirius howled, clamoring to his feet. His hands were balled into fists and he was glaring at Bellatrix and Cissa.

Bellatrix screwed up her face, "I'm eight. I'm a baby and I'm eight!" she mocked in a sing-songy voice. It was too easy; in a flash Sirius was running across the room at her, fists in the air, but Bellatrix just lifted her leg up, so he ran into it and couldn't reach her. Sirius swung his fists out in frustration and growled at her. Reg had crawled closer to Cissa, holding onto her hand while Cissa shouted "stop it" again and again over Bellatrix's laughs.

Andy, who had been watching closely as her sisters and cousins fought like they normally did, got to her feet and calmly walked over to where Sirius was still trying to reach Bellatrix. She grasped him on both his shoulders and leaned down to whisper in his ear, "Come with me, Siri," she said in a calming but commanding voice that only she was able to pull off. The effect on Sirius was almost instant, he growled one more time at Bellatrix, but released his fists and relaxed into his cousin's arms. He allowed Andy to steer him out of the library. Bellatrix went back to her own thoughts drinking the stolen wine and Cissa comforted Regulus and started to read to him once again.

Sirius let Andy walk him out of the library and down the hall before he wrenched his body away from her still angry. "I hate her" he said fiercely, "I hate her, I hate her, I hate her!"

Andy nodded, "I know you do, I don't like her much myself, but going after her like that isn't going to get you anywhere" Andy advised, "You would do much better at getting back at her with something she wouldn't see coming, something she wouldn't be able to blame on you." Andy watched a small smile cross her cousin's face. He was far too brash and much too young to play Bellatrix's games on his own, but she wasn't, and she had always hated her older sister's cruelty.

Christmas night was finally upon them, the only time during Christmas that Bellatrix actually liked. The formal party at her aunt and uncle's house for all the pure-blood families was the best part of the holiday, not only because she got to be around others her age, but because no one under Hogwarts age was allowed to be there, meaning her stupid little cousins. They would be stuck up in the library with a tutor, Reg was probably just being read to, but Sirius was going to have actual work to do, studying French or writing or something. Usually the boys were allowed to play, but Sirius had gotten himself in trouble with Aunt Wulburga that morning for putting salt in her tea and they were being punished. She smiled to herself thinking about Sirius's angry face when he got caught, while she sat at the mirror getting ready for the evening.

Everyone who was anyone was going to be there, the Malfoys, the Lestranges, the Parkinsons, the Notts, the Averys, the Greengrasses. It was the event of the season and she had to look her very best. She was wearing jet black dress robes, as dark as her hair, that fell off her shoulders, and a matching set of emerald jewelry around her neck, wrists, and dangling from her ears. She was applying some smoky eyeshadow and dark mascara as finishing touches and would make her way to the party just late enough so everyone would see her enter the room.

Downstairs, guests were arriving and Andy and Cissa were already in the formal dining room. The long table that usually was there had been moved in favor of smaller cocktail tables, a buffet table, and a small dance floor. The evening was partly a Christmas party and partly an event for the most important wizarding families to come together, make deals, and plan their children's futures. Andy despised events like this. To her, everyone seemed fake, smiling and laughing and chatting away and pretending to be something that they weren't, but 13 years in the Black family coupled with two and a half years in the Slytherin dorm at Hogwarts had taught her that not everyone was who they pretended to be at these parties. Many of her classmates were just as cruel as her sister and she disliked many them. She was proud to wear green and had great ambitions of becoming the greatest healer the wizarding world had ever seen, but it seemed that with every year she become less proud to be pureblood, less proud to be a Black. She couldn't be, not with the hate and the hurt that constantly surrounded her. She would never tell anyone here, but she had started making friends outside Slytherin House. Quietly, as to not be noticed by her sisters, she had begun to hang out with some Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff girls in her year.

Andy was stationed near the drink table with her sister. This was Cissa's first year at the Christmas party and she seemed to be literally bouncing on her toes. Andy couldn't hold back a smile. Cissa had always been a little timid but she seemed to be coming into her own at Hogwarts. Andy just hoped that she would be strong enough to resist some of the worst of what was around her. As more guests arrived, Cissa, or Narcissa as her new friends called her, ran off to hang out with a small group of first years. Andy lingered a moment longer at the drink table, sighed, and then went off to mingle, as was expected of her. As she walked over to greet the Malfoys and the Greengrasses she saw her sister come down the stairs.

Bella had finally decided to grace everyone with her presence. She had walked down the stairs precisely thirty minutes after the party had started and turned heads with her entrance, many of the Hogwarts boys ogling her. The Lestrange boys had come over to her immediately and Bellatrix was delighted at the way Rodolphus was eyeing her dress. She poured herself some pumpkin juice from the pitcher, sure that one of the boys had already spiked it with some ale or mead or something by now. She turned around and Rodolphus was right behind her. He stepped forward pushing her against the wall as he leaned over her talking about the Quidditch match he had won for Slytherin right before break. She found Quidditch rather dull but she enjoyed watching him trying to impress her.

She took a sip of her pumpkin juice, which definitely had some ale in it, but when she looked up both boys were staring at her open mouthed. Rabastan covered his mouth as he started to laugh. Rodolphus was laughing openly at her. Bellatrix looked around and saw everyone else was staring at her as well. Most of her classmates were laughing and pointing at her while some of the adults looked rather annoyed and her uncle Orin looked downright angry. Bellatrix whipped her head back around at the boys and grabbed Rodolphus by his collar pulling him closer to her. He immediately stopped laughing as she glared at him. " _What_ , is everyone starring at?" she asked in a harsh whisper.

"It, it's, it's your hair", Rodolphus stammered, "some, someone, someone has changed it. It looks red and gold instead of black."

Bellatrix narrowed her eyes at him. "Someone? Someone?!" She could hardly keep her voice down as she asked, "Who was it?"

Rodolphus shook his head, "I don't know, honestly I don't."

Bellatrix pushed him away from her. Everyone was still watching her. She caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror by the staircase. Her hair was no longer jet black but instead it was streaked in vertical stripes with red and gold. She whipped out her wand and pointed it at her own head with the intention of changing it back, but when she did everyone laughed again. She saw in the mirror that it hadn't worked. The red and gold now seemed to be sparkling, light bouncing off her head like a crystal chandelier.

"Hey Bella!", Lucius Malfoy yelled across the room, "are you a lion now?"

"Yeah Bella", someone else shouted, "You gunna move up to the blood traitor tower?"

She screamed stomping her foot on the ground and starring around at all her classmates. "Who did this?" she demanded, "someone tell me who did this!"

No one answered her. Someone started chanting, "Blood traitor, blood traitor, blood traitor." Most of the guests picked it up quickly until it seemed that 'blood traitor' was being thrown at her from every direction.

She wasn't sure what to do. She had no way of knowing who had done this to her hair, but she wasn't about to let whoever it was completely off the hook. She threw her pumpkin juice to the ground, smashing the glass and making everyone fall silent. "When I find out who did this, I will curse them. I will curse them until they wish they were never born!" she yelled, and with that threat she stormed out of the room and back up the stairs.

Andy smiled as she watched her sister go. The double acting potion she had brewed last night had been strategically placed, the first part in some salt that made its way only into Bellatrix's tea that morning leaving the second part easily poured into the entire jug of pumpkin juice. Having been the only one who had both doses, Bellatrix had been the only one effected and Andy had gotten a great picture of her sister with red and gold shimmering hair smashing her glass to the floor, a picture that, she knew, Sirius was dying to see.


End file.
